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Copyright K^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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BROWNING 



BROWNING 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES, 

APPRECIATIONS, AND SELECTIONS FROM HIS 

"FIFTY MEN AND WOMEN" 



BY 

PAULINE LEAVENS 

President of The New York Browning Society 



THE ALICE HARRIMAN COMPANY 
NEW YORK C^ SEATTLE 

1910 



.iH- 



Copyright, 1910 
By Paulinb Leavens 



THE PREMIER PRESS 
NEW YORK 



CCI.A278476 



TO 

E. L. B. 



CONTENTS 

Biographical Notes 11 

The Brownings* Friends 23 

Appreciations 27 

Browning's Point of View - - - - - 51 

Foreword to the Selections - - - - 67 

Selections --------73 

Books Recommended for Study by the New York 

Browning Society 127 



IT is a distinct pleasure to render 
acknowledgment to the many pub- 
lishers who have graciously given 
permission to use most valuable ex- 
cerpts from their books : to Macmillan 
CBi, Co. for one from Life of Gladstone ; 
to the Century Co. for Browning in 
Asolo and Katherine de Kay Bronson's 
articles; to Crowell C^ Co. for Intro- 
duction to Camberwell Edition; to 
* The Outlook ' for Pigskin Library; to 
Charles Scribner's Sons for Sonnet from 
The White Bees; to Houghton, MiiBin 
CBi, Co. for Mrs. Orr's Life and Letters ; 
to Eaton CBi, Mains for Best in Brown- 
ing; to Dodd, Mead C^ Co. for Literary 
Interpretations; to Harper C^ Brothers 
for Letters of Robert Browning and 
Elizabeth Barrett; and to Mary E. 
Burt for Browning's Women. 

Thanks are also due to those who 
have written especially for this book and 
to Mr. F. Herbert Stead, London, Mrs. 
Le Verne W. Noyes and Mrs. Blanche 
Browne Gillies, of Chicago, Mrs. Ella B. 
Hallock, President of Southold Brown- 
ing Society, and Professor A. J. Arm- 
strong, of Georgetown University, for 
definite information which has been of 
great value. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



This Marriage 

was 

Bolemcized 

between us. 



/Zrfj^/?/^ Sk^^TtyTf-^m^ 



jCMy^^.mJt^^^^^^'^c^a^^r^ 



Facsimile ol entry m the Registet ol the Parish Churcb of St. Marylebone, Sept. 12th 1846. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

TJROWNING was born to the purple — not to the 
*^ ecclesiastical, nor the "gaudy gold, hard food for 
Midas," nor to the transitory crown of kings; but to 
the royal kingdom of Poetry, that luminous realm 
where God works, and man understands. 

In his childhood's home, religion, poetry, art, music 
were the daily life of the spirit. And love was there 
also, made manifest in fullness, and the overflowing 
beauty of nature all about that pleasant home gave the 
responsive child, and later the man, abundant oppor- 
tunity to hold communion with her visible forms, for 
it was in the love of nature he ever looked and listened. 
Then, with a natural child-love for bird and beast, he 
made friends with all possible specimens, and brought 
them home to a sjmipathetic mother who was his con- 
fidant. Later, they watched together the spider, that 
"extraordinarily fine fellow which spun its marvelous 
web over his desk," as he wrote Bells and Pomegran- 
ates. Later still it was, with his arm around her as 
was his custom whenever near, that he told her the 
secret of secrets, that he was going to elope with 
Elizabeth Barrett. To the end of his life he never 

II 



12 BROWNING 

ceased to be interested in all living things, and in his 
last summer he whistled encouragingly to the lizards 
on the picturesque walls of Asolo as he had done fifty 
years before. 

When about five years old he wrote verses in imi- 
tation of Ossian, and "laid them up for posterity under 
the cushion of a great arm-chair," and it was at this 
period that his father who "was a scholar and knew 
Greek," taught him the Homeric poems and illustrated 
them with genuine moving pictures. The architecture 
of Troy was indicated by chairs and table, the cat 
impersonating the all-bewitching Helen, the pony 
standing in the stable aptly signified Achilles, medi- 
tating upon himself, while Towser and Tray repre- 
sented Agamemnon and Menelaus. The page-boy 
stood for Hector, and little Robert perched a-top the 
citadel enacting the part of Priam, "proud father of 
fifty sons," who had an eye single for the indiscreet 
Paris supposed to be immured under the footstool. 

Carlyle once confided to a friend that he thought 

of writing a life of Michael Angelo, and 

"mind ye, I'll no' say much about his art !" It would 
be quite as difficult to detach Browning from his 
poetry as Michael Angelo from his art. Before Brown- 
ing was twenty years of age he had determined that 
poetry should be the art thru which he would express 
his convictions, and he met with the sympathy of 
his father in this, who would gladly give his son the 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 13 

opportunity of doing what had been denied himself. 
Browning always remembered this with the deepest 
gratitude. The home library consisted of six thousand 
books with many valuable drawings and pictures. 
Robert Browning, Senior, had a Dutch bias for pic- 
tures, and his son an Italian, hence the communion in 
that phase of art was not as complete as in Greek 
literature. 

The modern poets that came into Browning's read- 
ing at this time, exercising a strong influence, were 
Byron, Keats, and Shelley, especially the last. But 
a few years before, in that classic land where the "light 
waves lisp * Greece' " Byron had said his last words, 
"now I go to sleep," and his body had been refused 
burial in Westminster Abbey, and was laid in the 
family vault at Hucknell. The heart of Shelley had 
been torn from his burning body by Trelawny, while 
Byron and Leigh Hunt stood near, and buried under 
the cypresses in Rome. 

Atropos had cut the frail cord that held Keats to 
this earth life and his body was laid in the same ceme- 
tery. Shelley had some new ideas on sociology, and 
was indulging in higher criticism — more dangerous 
then even than now. Naturally Brovming's young in- 
quiring mind laid hold on these to his detriment, seem- 
ingly, for a while, but he acknowledged later that he 
had not read him aright. "Shelley opened up for this 
young and enthusiastic follower new vistas leading 



14 BROWNING 

toward the Infinite, toward the unattainable best," says 
Professor Dowden. 

Pauline was the first poem put into the current of 
publication. It was original in form, filled with minute 
description of nature seen thru the eyes of devotee, 
and felt in the heart of the lover. It taxed the intel- 
lect. There are those who think poetry must either 
soothe or make you weep — and some of it does. 
Pauline was not a good "seller," and when Elizabeth 
Barrett wrote about sending to the bookseller for a 
copy, Browning smiled in glorious security, he having 
all of those unsold, which meant most of them, at the 
house-top. It was thirty years before he publicly 
acknowledged the authorship. Only a few years ago 
one stray copy brought three hundred and twenty-five 
guineas at a sale in London. 

Paracelsus, full of "erudition turned into poetry," 
came next on the current; then Sordello, Pippa Passes, 
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, many Bells and Pomegranates 
— and Browning was sitting among the gods, youngest 
of them all. Carlyle was there, and Dickens, Tennyson, 
Thackeray, Mill, Hunt, Wordsworth and Landor. 

In the meantime. Browning had made his first trip 
into Italy to get local color for Sordello — which was 
well outlined before he went — and an idea, for what 
afterward became Pippa Passes. He went direct to 
Trieste, "then one step just from sea to land," and 
found Asolo ; and all who know Browning know Pippa 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 15 

and Sordello — for different reasons — and that it was 
in Asolo that dear little Pippa sang out her happy 
heart and touched so many lives, and the beautiful and 
irresistible Palma led Sordello a willing captive. 

Asolo is a little city set among the hills long before 
Rome was, but now the crumbling walls, the ruined 
fortress, Queen Canaro's Castle, the arcaded streets 
do but suggest the ancient grandeur. The silk indus- 
try was long ago taken nearer to railroad centres, but 
one mill is still running, and the one where Pippa 
"wound silk all day long to earn just bread and milk'* 
has been converted into a Lace-School, and these are 
now social and economic centres, to both of which 
Mr. Robert Barrett Browning gives financial support 
in loving memory of his father. He also purchased 
the building so long desired by Browning, and it is 
called Pippa's Tower, and from this the beauty of the 
surrounding nature is unsurpassed; it is a sweet, ten- 
der poem that pulls at your heart-strings, enters your 
being, and compels the knowledge that you are an 
inseparable part of the Great Maker of all this har- 
mony. Asolo is easily accessible from Venice; and 
the Antique Inn offers a cordial welcome, a delicious 
cup of coffee, and a diminutive register where you may 
enroll your name among the elect who seek this shrine. 

Browning made a second trip to Italy, and was 
planning another with no premonition that he was 
standing in the gracious shadow of an all-important 



i6 BROWNING 

event that was coming on apace. Of this we leam in 
the published "Letters of Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett," and there we read one of the sweetest 
love stories ever told, and feel the deepest gratitude 
that this sacred privilege is ours. But had they been 
given to us by any other hand we would feel that we 
merited the reproof Browning gives to the "foolish 
crowd of rushers-in upon genius who come and eat 
their bread and cheese on the high altar, and talk of 
reverence without one of its surest instincts — ^never 
quiet till they cut their initials on the cheek of the 
Medicean Venus to prove they worship her." It is an 
interesting point to note in these letters that Elizabeth 
Barrett's excel Browning's in erudition, and her lively 
sense of humor and exceedingly keen wit throws him 
quite into the penumbra — as a writer of letters. 

All the world knows the romantic beginning and 
ending of this correspondence, and of the memorable 
day when they met each other — for the first time out- 
side her father's house — and were married in Maryle- 
bone Church, not to meet again for a week, when they 
started for Italy, leaving a brief announcement of 
their marriage in the daily papers. 

This event held attention far beyond the traditional 
nine days. For these dwellers on Parnassus to follow 
the example of Jessica and Lorenzo was indeed 
worthy of attention! Wordsworth said: "So Robert 
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett are gone off 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 17 

together. Well, I hope they understand each other, no 
one else could." This reminds us of Browning's 
opinion, given confidentially, that he would go a great 
distance to see a curl of Byron's hair or one of his 
gloves, yet could not get up enthusiasm enough to 
cross the room if Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey 
were all enshrined in the little china bottle within the 
limit of his vision. Mr. and Mrs. Browning stayed a 
few days in Paris, and on by charming degrees to Pisa 
for the winter, Wilson and the ubiquitous Flush in 
attendance. When Browning was asked by Miss 
Barrett if Flush might go to the "Siren's Isle" with 
them, his affirmative answer came promptly back ex- 
pressing a wonder that she ever had an approximation 
to a doubt about it. Was ever little dog so favored? 

With the exception of an occasional trip to Paris 
and London, the fifteen years of their ideal companion- 
ship was spent in Italy. "Casa Guidi" in Florence is 
made famous by them. Here the "King of the Mys- 
tics" and the "Daughter of Grecian Genius" lived a 
comparatively secluded life, yet with a sympathetic 
hand on the pulse of humanity, for never were poets or 
statesmen more vitally interested in the politicial and 
sociological issues of all nations, yet none ever rose 
higher into the realms of the ideal. Mrs. Jameson, 
who met them in Paris, wrote: "I know not how these 
two poet heads and poet hearts will get on in this 
prosaic worid;" but how extremely well they did 



i8 BROWNING 

"get on" has been told in many ways. Economy was 
often a necessary consideration, but "bills were made 
up every week and paid more regularly than bard 
beseems." "Penini's lessons were given and little 
trowsers creditably frilled and tucked" and yet six- 
teen thousand lines taken to England for publication. 
Here is an instance — there are many — ^to disprove 
that generally accepted idea that genius must be irre- 
sponsible, unmoral and averse to the sphere of com- 
mon duty. By the very virtue of their high calling 
they cannot be so ignoble. 

The crown of happiness had come with the birth 
of their son, and the pure delight of motherhood as 
expressed by Pompilia is the interpretation of Mrs. 
Browning's own joy. She once wrote: "Robert and 
I have taken up our parental duties with a perfect 
passion." 

Our pilgrim feet took us, when in Rome, to the 
Church of Lorenzo-in-Lucina, near the Corso, in 
which the much-loved Pompilia was baptized and 
married to Count Guido, and where lay "poor old 
Pietro," "kind, unwise Violante," and Pompilia after 
death. A full-length picture of Christ by Guido Reni 
hangs over the altar, and the lions still guard the 
doorway. Opposite Treve fountain, Castellani plies 
his imitative craft, surrounded by a rare collection of 
art treasures. "These are my jewels," he said with 
a smile, and when asked if he would give them to 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 19 

Rome some day, "Oh, I don't know — after me the 
deluge," quickly came the classic reply. He knew 
Browning had m.entioned his name in a book, but 
why, he did not comprehend. 

Harriet Hosmer told the writer it was in Rome, 
about six years after the marriage, that she modeled 
the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Browning. In this rare 
piece of marble we see his hand, strong, beautiful, 
holding the other — so frail and delicate — tenderly, as 
he ever held her in his life, enveloping her with that 
supreme, personal love which, like God's, makes the 
receivers kneelers.* 

In Florence, at Casa Guidi, in the opal-dawn of a 
late June day, Elizabeth Barrett Browning closed her 
eyes on this earth-side of death, whispering "Beauti- 
ful," while a strong man was left desolate, crying, 
"I want her, I want her." At Venice, in Rezzonico 
Palace, twenty-eight years later, in the deepening 
twilight of an early December day, Robert Browning 
closed his eyes on this earth-side of death, kissing the 
little ring She wore, and whispering: 

"O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 
And with God be the rest!" 

Pauline Leavens 
Whittier Hall, New York, 
December, 1910 



* A bronze copy of these hands is in the rooms of the Chicago Woman's 
Club, in the Fine Axis Building, on Michigan Avenue. 



THE BROWNINGS' FRIENDS 



THE BROWNINGS' FRIENDS 



THINKING it might be an item of interest to note 
the names of the literati, artists and statesmen 
with whom Mr. and Mrs. Browning walked and 
talked we have appended this list. 



Hans Christian Andersen 

Matthew Arnold. 

Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 

Thomas Carlyle. 

Jane Carlyle. 

Hugh Arthur Clough. 

Moncure D. Conway. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

Hiram Corson. 

Charlotte Cushman. 

Charles Dickens. 

Edward Dowden. 

George Elliott. 

Cannon Farrar. 

Helen Faucit. 

Kate Field. 

Frederick Jas. Furnivall. 

William Ewart Gladstone 

Giuseppe Garibaldi. 



Edmund Gosse. 

Frederick Harrison. 

Benjamin Robert Haydon 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Thomas Hood. 

Harriet Hosmer. 

Leigh Hunt. 

William Holman Hunt. 

Mary Howitt. 

Anna Jameson. 

Fanny Kemble. 

John Kenyon. 

Charles Kingsley. 

Alphonse de Lamartine. 

Walter Savage Landor. 

Sir Frederick Leighton. 

Charles Lever. 

Henry Lewes. 

John Gibson Lockhart. 



23 



24 



BROWNING 



James Russell Lowell. 
Edw'd Rob't Bulwer Lyt- 
ton (Owen Meredith). 
Edward George Earle 

Lytton. 
Sir John Millais. 
Harriet Martineau. 
James Martineau. 
Giuseppe Mazzini. 
Wm. Charles Macready. 
George Meredith. 
Mary Russell Mitford. 
William Morris. 
Dinah Maria Mulock 

(Mrs. Craik). 
Alfred De Musset. 
Mrs. Sutherland Orr. 
Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 
Theodore Parker. 
Coventry Patmore. 
Hiram Powers. 
Adelaide Procter. 



Bryan Waller Procter 

(Barry Cornwall). 
Christina Rossetti. 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
William Michael Rossetti 
John Ruskin. 
George Sand. 
William Wetmore Story. 
Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
Charles Sumner. 
Algernon Charles 

Swinburne. 
Arthur Symons. 
Bayard Taylor. 
Serjeant Talfourd. 
Sir Alfred Tennyson. 
Frederick Tennyson. 
William Makepeace 

Thackeray. 
William Wordsworth. 
George Frederick Watts. 



APPRECIATIONS 



APPRECIATIONS 

THESE Appreciations from widely different sources, 
periods, and climes, are especially interesting at 
this time — the approaching Centenary. 



BROWNING 

How blind the toil that burrows like the mole 
In winding graveyard pathways, underground. 
For Browning's lineage ! What i£ men have found 

Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll 

Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul? 
Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned 
Through all the world, — the poets laurel-crowned 

With wreaths from which the autumn takes no toll. 

The blazons on his poet-shield are these : 
The crimson sign of Shelley's heart on fire. 
The staff and script of Chaucer's pilgrimage. 
The golden globe of Shakespeare's human stage. 
The rose of Dante's deep divine desire. 
The tragic mask of wise Euripides. 

Henry Van Dyke 
27 



28 BROWNING 

BROWNING AT ASOLO 

This is the loggia Browning loved, 
High on the flank of the friendly town ; 

These are the hills that his keen eye roved, 
The green like a cataract leaping down 
To the plain that his pen gave new renown. 

There to the West what a range of blue ! — 
The very background Titian drew 

To his peerless Loves! O tranquil scene! 
Who than thy poet fondlier knew 

The peaks and the shore and the lore between? 

See ! yonder's his Venice, — the valiant Spire, 

Highest one of the perfect three. 
Guarding the others; the Palace choir, 
The Temple flashing with opal fire, — 

Bubble and foam of the sunlit sea. 

Yesterday he was part of it all, — 

Sat here, discerning cloud from snow 

In the flush of the Alpine afterglow, 

Or mused on the vineyard whose wine-stirred row 
Meets in a leafy bacchanal. 

Listen a moment — ^how oft did he ! — 
To the bells from Fontalto's distant tower. 

Leading the evening in . . . ah, me! 

Here breathes the whole soul of Italy, 
As one rose breathes with the breath of the bower. 



APPRECIATIONS 29 

Sighs were meant for an hour like this 

When joy is keen as a thrust of pain. 
Do you wonder the poet's heart should miss 
This touch of rapture in Nature's kiss. 

And dream of Asolo over again? 

"Part of it yesterday!" we moan? 

Nay, he is part of it now, no fear. 
What most we love, we are that alone. 
His body lies under the minster stone. 

But the love of the warm heart lingers here. 

Robert Underwood Johnson 

Browning was a man of the world in the noble 
sense, — that sense in which the saints of the future 
are to be heart and soul one with their fellows. He 
saw clearly that this present is not to be put by for 
any future ; that there is no future save in the present. 

Other poets have chosen their paths through the 
vast growths of life and by virtue of some principle of 
selection and exclusion made a way for themselves. 
But Browning surrendered nothing; he would take 
life as a whole or he would reject it. He refused to 
be consoled by ignoring certain classes of facts or to 
be satisfied with fragments pieced together after some 
design of his own. He must have a vision of all the 
facts: and giving each its weight and place, he must 
make his peace with them, or else chaos and death are 



30 BROWNING 

the only certainties. It is only the great souls that 
thus wrestle the whole night through and will not rest 
until God has revealed, not indeed His own name, but 
the name by which they shall henceforth know that to 
them the Universe is no longer voiceless and godless. 

Hamilton Wright Mabie 

Unless I very greatly mistake, judging from these 
two works ("Sordello" and "Pippa Passes"), you seem 
to possess a rare spiritual gift, poetical, pictorial, intel- 
lectual, by whatever name we may prefer calling it; 
to unfold which into articulate clearness is naturally 
the problem of problems for you. This noble endow- 
ment, it seems to me farther, you are not at present on 
the best way for unfolding; and if the world had 
loudly called itself content with these two poems, my 
surmise is, the world could have rendered you no 
fataler disservice than that same! Believe me, I 
speak with sincerity; and if I had not loved you well, 
I would not have spoken at all. If your own choice 
happened to point that way, I for one should hail it as 
a good omen that your next work were written in 
prose ! Carlyle 

I would rather have written the "Blot in the 
'Scutcheon" than any other piece of modern times. 
There is no other man living who could produce such 
a work. Charles Dickens 



APPRECIATIONS 31 

To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern 
that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to 
feel that discernment is but a hand playing with finely 
ordered variety on the chord of emotion, a soul in 
which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, 
and feeling flashes back as a new organ of know- 
ledge. George Eliot 

It is some time since we read a work of more un- 
equivocal power than "Paracelsus." We conclude that 
its author is a young man, as we do not recollect his 
having published before. If so, we may safely predict 
for him a brilliant career ... if he continues 
true to the promise of his genius. He possesses all the 
elements of a fine poet. John Forster 

Then I became very much addicted to Browning, 
and used to read him night and day. I have never 
myself quite understood what people meant, and still 
sometimes seem to mean, by the obscurity and "diffi- 
culty" of "Sordello." It is distinctly breathless, and 
it is unduly affected, but if anybody has got a brain at 
all that brain ought not to be very much exercised in 
following the fortunes of Sordello and Taurello, Al- 
beric, Adelaide, and the rest. . 

The "Ring and the Book" is so tyrannously long 
without any action ; so mercilessly voluble without jus- 



32 BROWNING 

tification for the volubility; it has such a false air of 
wisdom and philosophy ... I remember think- 
ing of Porphyria's love, and wishing that someone 
had applied that person's drastic procedure to the poet 
on his own principles. George Saintsbury 

No one has made men think more ; no one has pene- 
trated further into the mystery of human destiny, into 
this conflict of the soul with its Divine spark and its 
infinite flight and of the inexorable laws necessity 
forges for us. — The Temps 

Mr. Browning's great merit will have been to have 
given his name to the woman he married. This respec- 
table old gentleman, in spite of his nobleness of inten- 
tion, has contributed above all to make English girls 
love two things which are least fitted for them : meta- 
physics and Florence, where they all dream of living 
in tete-a-tete with Botticelli. — Figaro 

Among Browning's readers gratitude exceeds ad- 
miration. To convene a meeting of his creditors would 
be difficult, for he was little indebted to any, but a 
multitude of his debtors confess obligations greater 
than they can estimate. The needy soul is Browning's 
best interpreter, as the hungry man best comprehends 
and relishes food. People who have neither suffered 
keenly nor felt deeply, nor questioned earnestly — 



APPRECIATIONS 33 

whose inner life is pale, dull, inert, vapid, without aspi- 
ration, craving, perplexity, or intensity — are disquali- 
fied from comprehending and appreciating him. 

William V. Kelley 

Never for a moment did Browning give up his alle- 
giance to Christ. The poem "Saul," one of the noblest, 
if not the noblest, of all his poems, is the one most in- 
tensely religious. In no other poem is the claim of 
Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life of the 
world more profoundly or more beautifully asserted. 
Its climax "To see the Christ stand," is for Browning 
the highest word of poetry, of religion, and of life. 
Few, if any, poems in the language touch such depths 
of the religious life or induce within us the conviction 
that the incarnation of Christ, besides being the cen- 
tral fact of time, is the central fact of eternity as well. 

John Angus MacVannel 

Browning's best work ranks among the great mas- 
terpieces of literature because, like them, it is an inex- 
haustible well-spring of inspiration rewarding the 
reader with deeper perception of its truth and fresh 
appreciation of its beauty with each new reading. The 
supreme productions in literature are those that reveal 
their meaning more and more the oftener we return to 
them, and in this class, together with the masterpieces 
of Homer, Dante, Goethe and Shakspere, must be 



34 BROWNING 

placed those poems of Browning in which he sets 
forth his essential message; — the doctrine that no 
achievement is final, that each new attainment is but 
the vantage-ground from which we climb to some 
higher expression of the spirit ; the conviction that the 
possibilities for moral and spiritual progress are liter- 
ally infinite to an eternal soul in its growth toward that 
image of the divine in which we were potentially made. 
Nor can we pay our poet any higher tribute than to 
say that he practiced what he preached, that his own 
life was his greatest work of art, that in his own pro- 
gressive unfolding he gave the world a living interpre- 
tation of his message. Alfred W. Martin 

The true function of the dramatist is to create men 
and women who think, speak and act not as we would 
have them, but as they must, and always with the ac- 
cent of their individual life. When the creation is a 
personality that conquers us by its intrinsic grace and 
charm, so that we feel that we would rather far be such 
an one in any misery or distress than to forego such 
excellence, then literature and ethics have met, right- 
eousness and art have kissed each other. So have they 
done in "Luria." John W. Chadwick 

Browning makes subtleties his perpetual pasture. 

Henry James 



APPRECIATIONS 35 

We who have learned to drink large inspirations 
from his words are especially glad to know that he was 
not himself false to them in his life; that the man is 
even greater than the poet; and that in the unseen 
glory which he greeted with a cheer, we may expect to 
see him robed in eternal light, and dowered with im- 
mortal song. James Mudge 

Browning ! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, 
No man has walked along our road with step 
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 
So varied in discourse. 

Walter Savage Landor 

Everything Browningish is found here — the legal 
jauntiness, the knitted argumentation, the cunning 
prying into detail, the suppressed tenderness, the 

humanity, the salt intellectual humor 

Whatever else may be said of Mr. Browning and his 
work by way of criticism, it will be admitted on all 
hands that nowhere in literature can he found a man 
and a work more fascinating in their zvay. As for the 
man, he was crowned long ago, and we are not one of 
those who grumble because one king has a better seat 
than another, an easier cushion, a finer light in the 
great temple. A king is a king and each will choose 
his place. Robert Buchanan 



36 BROWNING 

He is the intellectual phenomenon of the last half 
century, even if he is not the poetical aloe of modem 
English literature. His like we have never seen 

before In all true poetry the form of the 

thought is part of the thought, and never was this ab- 
solute law of literary aesthetics more flagrantly illus- 
trated than in the poetry of Robert Browning. To say 
that Browning is the greatest dramatic poet since 
Shakespeare is to say that he is the greatest poet, most 
excellent in what is the highest form of imaginative 
composition, because it is the most creative. 

Richard Grant White 

Browning is sometimes accused of having no form, 
but I find myself obliged to deny this premise. 
Browning not only has form, but is even multiform; 
not as changing with contradictory colors as might a 
chameleon, but as protean, like all life, and the more 
abundant the life the more multiform the expression. 
He seems akin to that centre of vitality which forgets 
that it is taking form, and is only conscious that it is. 

Thomas R. Slicer 

Robert Browning is the poet who makes the su- 
preme appeal to the spiritualized intellect. His phil- 
osophy reveals life in its wholeness, its failures being 
merely the experimental process by means of which 
man arrives at success. While Browning was not, I 



APPRECIATIONS 37 

believe, a student of Hegel, his greater poems are yet 
absolutely permeated with the vital idealism of the 
Hegelian philosophy. Lilian Whiting 



Browning's whole theory of poetry is summed up in 
two lines in his first poem, Pauline: 

"And then thou saidst a perfect bard is one 
Who chronicled the stages of all life." 

This definition says nothing about Art, Beauty or 
Rhythm ; it declares the Poet primarily to be a Reporter 
of Life — and the greater variety of life he portrays the 
greater is his poetry. For this reason. Browning de- 
clared Shakespeare to be the greatest of all poets, be- 
cause he chronicled more stages of life than anyone 
else. This theory Browning elaborated in The Glove, 
Transcendentalism, How It Strikes a Contemporary, 
and the last part of The Ring and The Book. 

Wm. Lyon Phelps 



Browning uncovered his head in returning the salu- 
tation of a Priest, and touched his hat to the meanest 
peasant, who, after the manner of the country, lifted 
his own to greet the passing stranger. "I always salute 
the Church," he said. "I respect it." 

Katherine de Kay Bronson 



38 BROWNING 

The greatest portrait Browning has given us is with- 
out doubt that of his wife. There are grand portraits 
of women that stand out, in my mind, above all others, 
namely, the portrait of Antigone, the one matchless 
woman of Greek poetry; the angel wife of Robert 
Browning; and the Beatrice of Dante. 

Dante expressed his wish to write of Beatrice as 
never man had v/ritten of women before; and I think 
the best critics of the day concede that Robert Brown- 
ing is the only poet since Dante that has ever reached 
his altitude. Mary E. Burt 

Yes, as I think it over, "The Ring and the Book" 
appears to me one of the great pen poems whose splen- 
dor can never suffer lasting eclipse, however it may 
have presently fallen into abeyance. It's such a great 
story and unfolded with such a magnificent breadth 
and noble fulness that one who blames it lightly 
blames himself heavily. William Dean Howells 

The principal aspiration of our age is a passionate 
longing for Truth, combined with a purity of intention, 
and a reverence of method in truth-seeking, such as 
has never been equaled in any age. It is an age of 
science, but also an age of faith in its sublimest and 
noblest aspect; an age of destruction if you will, but 
amidst the ruins of the temples of the past, may already 
be discovered the rising walls of a new temple, dedi- 



APPRECIATIONS 39 

cated to a truly Spiritual Religion; an age of intense 
humanism; an age which has literally taken some of 
the sting of death, and some of the terrors from the 
grave, in such an age, what do we most need? A 
purer faith, a worthier philosophy, a higher standard 
of rectitude, deeper springs of conduct, more reality, 
less sham, and above all, a profounder confidence in 
God and our own truest selves. 

Among Humanity's greatest helpers in achieving 
such aims, must always stand the name of Robert 
Browning. J. Herman Randall 

The well known Chicagoan, James Charlton, general 
passenger agent for the Chicago and Alton Railroad, 
has the distinction of giving to the American public 
Browning's poems in a series of Railway Guides com- 
mencing in December, 1872, and closing in October, 
1874. Mr. Charlton was sincerely desirous of giving 
his favorite poet such an audience as never another 
poet had. 

This unique method of treating the public to poetry 
pleased Browning and a complete set was sent him 
by his request and it is now in the archives of the 
British Museum. 

One of the greatest pleasures I have experienced in 
years of teaching has been the deep and abiding hold 
that the poetry of Robert Browning has taken upon 



40 BROWNING 

my students. Year after year, echoes come from the 
Browning class bearing messages of thankfulness and 
love to the poet whose words and ideals have been so 
assimilated as to have a vital power in the active lives 
of these students. I say unhesitatingly that I believe 
no English poet, except Shakespeare, gives such 
genuine satisfaction as a reward for the time expended 
as Browning, and what is more, I believe that any 
intelligent, conscientious teacher with a fair amount 
of literary appreciation — and surely no other ought to 
teach literature — can arouse greater and more lasting 
enthusiasm among college students for Browning than 
for any other poet, — and I have no sympathy with the 
Browning fad — indeed, Brov/ning is not for the "fad- 
dist" — ^he is for the man whose soul hungers for the 
richest bounties poetry possesses. 

A. J. Armstrong 



An excellent solemn chiming, the passage from 
Dante makes with your "Sordello," and the "Sordello" 
deserves the labour which it needs, to make it appear 
the great work it is. I think that the principle of asso- 
ciation is too subtly in movement throughout it — so 
that while you are going straight forward you go at 
the same time round and round, until the progress 
involved in the motion is lost sight of by the lookers 
on. Elizabeth Barrett 



APPRECIATIONS 41 

Browning is almost alone in the peculiar height and 
delicacy of his interpretation of womanhood, and Pom- 
pilia the crowning illustration of this. 

She is the heroic type of womanhood rising in per- 
fect response to every height of experience, discerning 
through utter sincerity and transparency of soul the 
truth in the highest relations of human life. 

There is infinite delicacy and yet depth in Brown- 
ing's reading of the secrets of the woman's soul, the 
glory and beauty of her motherhood. Pompilia is even 
nearer than Caponsacchi to The Truth. In each the 
supreme hunger to serve the good of the other, infi- 
nitely and forever, rather than to be made happy by 
or be loved and satisfied. 

Edward Howard Griggs 

Robert Browning's view of life, love, and immor- 
tality are three points by which to swing the broken 
arc of earth and the perfect round of heaven. Life — 
a riot of gladness, a man's sharing in the angel's high- 
est privilege of doing God's will : the faith that every- 
thing means good and means it intensely. 

Love — the Aladdin's lamp of the soul: Life's Sum- 
mum Bonum: the pulsing heart flood against which 
no barrier can or ought to stand. 

Immortality— the necessary working hypothesis of 
life: the one assumption that can fit good and evil, 
anguish and ecstacy : ignorance and omniscience : God 



42 BROWNING 

and man into one exquisitely harmonious scheme at 
the end of which stands a human face, the Christ's 
human hand to receive men home. 

William Perry Eveland 

Humanity is made Sordello's companion-player on 
the stage of his life, so that the poem rightly conceived 
is not so metaphysical as is commonly supposed, but 
is virtually an experiment in the evolution of a poet 
and potential statesman by contact with the social 
world and popular needs lying outside of his individual 
nature. If in "Paracelsus," Browning's poem of Mind 
and Heart, the scheme of evolution unfolded was con- 
cerned with human origins, in the "Sordello," his poem 
of Will, the scheme was pushed a step farther, and 
dealt with social processes. Charlotte Porter 

I like very many and very different kinds of books, 
and do not for a moment attempt anything so prepos- 
terous as a continual comparison between books which 
may appeal to totally different needs, totally different 
sets of emotions. For instance, one correspondent 
pointed out to me that Tennyson was "trivial" com- 
pared to Browning, and another complained that I had 
omitted Walt Whitman; another asked why I put 
Longfellow "on a level" with Tennyson. I believe I 
did take Walt Whitman on one hunt, and I like 
Browning, Tennyson and Longfellow, all of them, 



APPRECIATIONS 43 

without thinking it necessary to compare them. It 

is largely a matter of personal taste 

Nor does my liking for Tennyson prevent m.y caring 
greatly for "Childe Roland," "Love Among the 
Ruins," "Proteus" and nearly all the poems that I can 
understand, and some that I can merely guess at, in 
Browning. I do not feel the slightest need of trying to 
apply a common measuring-rule to these three poets, 
any more than I find it necessary to compare Keats 
with Shelley, or Shelley with Poe. I enjoy them all. 

Theodore Roosevelt 

The British Public, who unceasingly bragged of the 
Shakespeare of whom it knew little, and the Spencer 
and Dryden and the rest, of whom it knew practically 
nothing, ridiculed the idea that Browning could be of 
the regal caste of poets because he spoke a language 
that was not of the sort it was accustomed to. Brown- 
ing mixed no water with his ink, as Goethe said our 
modern poets do; there was often little music in his 
words, and the Sense was at times rather hard to 
grasp ; and so our strong, robust, gloriously sane poet 
"came to his own and his own received him not." He 
spoke vigorous, pregnant words, warm from his great, 
loving heart, and "poured for us wine" to brace our 
souls in the degenerate days when men were giving 
up God for the unknowable, and their faith in Chris- 
tianity for belief in "something not ourselves which 



44 BROWNING 

makes for righteousness" ; he taught us a pure religion, 
reasonable and manly, robust and in harmony with 
the science of the age, and few would listen and fewer 
still would heed. Yet the age had such need of him! 

Edward Berdoe 

The character of Festus rivals that of Paracelsus 
in its strength and individuality. He embodies in a 
marvelous degree the ideal friend of humanity. Para- 
celsus would serve man and God, but Festus would 
serve God by loving man; he holds the praise of God 
to be: 

"The natural end and service of a man 
And holds such praise is best attained when man 
Attains the general welfare of his kind." 

Michal, the wife of Festus, is Browning's first at- 
tempt to portray a woman. She is little more than 
a vision, hardly individualized, and looks out among 
the stronger personalities of the poem like the 
shadowy face of an angel in some old painting. She 
is "Sweet Michal." Mrs. Fanny Holy 

The general belief expressed in the statement that 
he did not care about form is simply the most ridicu- 
lous criticism that could be conceived. It would be 
far nearer the truth to say that he cared more for 
form than any other English poet who ever lived. He 



APPRECIATIONS 45 

was always moulding and modeling and inventing 
new forms. Among all his two hundred or three 
hundred poems, it would scarcely be an exaggeration 
to say that there are half as many different meters 
as there are different poems. 

Gilbert Keith Chesterton 



Browning is cosmopolitan because he is following 
the human spirit in its countless avatars, its Protean 
changes, in every age and nation. He is interested in 
the human spirit whenever it lifts itself above the in- 
distinguishable mass of existence. Browning is not 
interested in humanity as the philanthropist or demo- 
crat, but as the artist and student of personality. He 
prefers to present extreme examples of human possi- 
bilities, to have new and peculiar poetic material. 
(Cf. Tennyson.) The vindictive Spanish monk jostles 
the modern skeptical bishop; Caliban's theology is as 
interesting as the aspirations of Andrea del Sarto. He 
sits now at the Mermaid with Shakspere and the rest, 
and now the spiritualist seance with Sludge, the 
Medium. In this ceaseless interest in personality, 
Browning has the insatiable curiosity that marked the 
Renaissance and that marks our times. The poet of 
the Renaissance is Shakspere; the poet of our own 
era is Browning. 

Frederick H. Sykes 



46 BROWNING 

The first woman to notice in this long gallery of 
portraits is Balaustion, the largest, healthiest, happiest 
woman of the group. A creature of superb physique, 
a profound philosopher (except in love affairs, — 
neither men nor women are philosophers there), good 
natured but earnest, witty but serious. She is per- 
fectly natural, a far closer portrait of a real American 
girl than our own literature affords. She is a true girl 
in every respect, if Browning did paint his own attrib- 
utes into her character. When she is introduced to 
us she is sitting with four other girls; they are all 
seated easily together on the bank of a stream, their 
lips pursed up like crumpled rose leaves; they are lis- 
tening to the story of her adventure. Mary E. Burt 

Poets have described the beauties, the sublimities 
of nature; Browning was the first poet, so far as I 
know, who made a starved landscape poetical; by 
which I mean, such a landscape appeal to the spiritual 
nature of the reader. It is all important in the higher 
poetry that the concrete become a direct spiritual 
medium to the student, independently of any intel- 
lectual interpretation. 

The true function of poetry should be to induce an 
exercise of the spiritual nature. There are plenty of 
other things in this matter-of-fact world to induce an 
exercise of the bumptious intellect. 

Hiram Corson 



APPRECIATIONS 47 

Instead of looking to perfection as an inheritance 
of earth such as is pictured by Shelley in symbols, cos- 
mic and spiritual, in the closing act of his "Prometheus 
Unbound," Browning's ideal grew to be eternal aeons 
of struggle and growth, relative evil always holding 
its appointed place as a spur toward further effort. 

Helen A. Clark 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 

OPINIONS are volatile, convictions are dynamic. 
Browning consistently gave his opinion and 
unflinchingly expressed his convictions on art, music, 
science, evolution, immortality, and men and things 
generally. And it is a distinct pleasure to add these 
excerpts given over his own signature. 

WHY I AM A LIBERAL 

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do. 
All that I am, now, all I hope to be,— 
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free 

Body and soul the purpose to pursue, 

God traced for both? If fetters, not a few. 
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me. 
These shall I bid men— each in his degree 

Also God-guided— bear, and gayly too? 

But little do or can the best of us : 

That little is achieved through Liberty. 

Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus. 
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I, 

Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss 

A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." 

51 



52 BROWNING 

A lady asked Browning to write an inscription for 
her gift to Gladstone on the fiftieth anniversary of his 
marriage. Browning answered: "Surely your kind- 
ness, even your sympathy, will be extended to me 
when I say with sorrow indeed that I am unable now 
conscientiously to do what, but a few years ago I 
would have, at least, attempted with such pleasure and 
pride as might almost promise success. I have re- 
ceived much kindness from that extraordinary person- 
age, and what my admiration for his transcendent 
abilities was and ever will be, there is no need to speak 
of: but I am forced to altogether deplore his present 
attitude with respect to the liberal party, of which I 
am the humblest unit, am still a member, and as such, 
grieved to the heart by every fresh utterance of his 
which comes to my knowledge. Were I in position 
to explain publicly how much the personal feeling is 
independent of the political aversion, all would be 
easy, but I am a mere man of Letters, and by the sim- 
ple inscription, which would truly testify to what is 
endearing unalterable in my esteem, I should lead 
people — as well those who know me as those who do 
not — to believe my approbation extended far beyond 
the bounds which unfortunately circumscribe it now. 
All this — even more — ^was on my mind as I sat last 
evening at the same table with the brilliantly-gifted 
man whom once — but that *once' is too sad to remem- 
ber." Right Hon. John Morley 

— Life of Gladstone 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 53 

Another testimony to the vitality of Browning study 
at the present time reaches us in the shape of a 
daintily printed leaflet, issued by the San Francisco 
Browning Society, a souvenir of one of its mornings 
spent in consideration of "Bishop Blougram's Apol- 
ogy." The leaflet shows the thoroughness of a 
group of enthusiastic students. It contains a brief 
account of the poems, including an interesting refer- 
ence to its real hero. Cardinal Wiseman, and eight or 
ten pages of notes, some of which are admirably sug- 
gestive. The fragment of a letter of Browning's 
which is included is worth quoting : 

"The most curious notice I ever had was from Car- 
dinal Wiseman, on Blougram— i.^., himself. It was 
in 'The Rambler,' a Catholic journal of those days, 
and certified to be his by Father Prout, who said no- 
body else would have dared put it in. The review 
praises the poem for its 'fertility of illustration and 
felicity of argument,' and says that, 'though utterly 
mistaken in the very groundwork of religion, though 
starting from the most unworthy notions of the work 
of a Catholic bishop, and defending a self-indulgence, 
every honest man must feel to be disgraceful, [it] is 
yet, in its way, triumphant.' " 

And what easy work these novelists have of it ! A 
dramatic poet has to make you love or admire his men 
and women— they must do and say all that you are 



54 BROWNING 

to see and hear — really do it in your face, say it in 
your ears and it is wholly for you in your power, to 
name, characterize, and so praise or blame what is 
so said and done, so if you don't perceive of yourself 
there is no standing by for the Author and telling you. 
But with these novelists — a scrape of the pen — out- 
blurting of a phrase and the miracle is achieved 
. . . . pray what think you of Bulwer's begin- 
ning a character by informing that same was endowed 
with perfect genius — genius ! — Letters, Vol. I 

By this time you have got my little book ("Hohen- 
stiel") and seen for yourself whether I make the best 
or the worst of the case. I think, in the main, he 
meant to do what I say, and, but for weakness — 
grown more apparent in his last years than formerly — 
would have done what I say he did not. I thought 
badly of him at the beginning of his career, et pour 
cause: better afterward, on the strength of the prom- 
ises he made, and gave indications of intending to 
redeem. I think him very weak in the last miserable 
year. At his worst I prefer him to Thiers's best. I am 
told my little thing is succeeding — sold 1,400 in the 
first five days, and before any notice appeared. I re- 
member that the year I made the little rough sketch in 
Rome, i860, my account for the last six months with 
Chapman was — nil, not one copy disposed of. . . . 
"Balustion"— the second edition is in the press, I think 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 55 

I told you. Two thousand five hundred in five months 
is a good sale for the likes of me. 

Mrs. Sutherland Orr 

— Life and Letters 

Edmund Gosse asked Mr. Browning what poems of 
moderate length represented him fairly, and the an- 
swer was : "If I knew what moderation exactly meant 
the choice would be easier. Let me say at a venture — 
lyrical, "Saul," or "Abt Vogler;'* narrative, "A For- 
giveness;" dramatic, "Caliban Upon Setebos;" idyllic 
(in a Greek sense), "Clive." Which means that being 
restricted to four dips in the lucky-bag I should not 
object to be judged by these samples so far as they 
go, for there is somewhat beyond still." 

My dear young friends, some people are good 
enough to say that my writings are sometimes unin- 
telligible; but I hope to make myself intelligible to 
you now when I say how affected and impressed I am 
by this noble, this magnificent welcome which you 
have given one so unworthy as myself. You dear 
young men, how I love you all! 

Llangollen, Sept., 1886 



56 BROWNING 

Time has kindly co-operated with my disindina- 
tion to write the poetry and the criticism besides. 
The readers I am at last privileged to expect, meet me 
fully half-way ; and if, from the fitting standpoint, they 
must still "censure me in their wisdom" they have 
previously "awakened their senses that they may the 
better judge." Nor do I apprehend any more charges 
of being willfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, 
or perversely harsh. 

Having hitherto done my utmost in the art to 
which my life is a devotion, I cannot engage to in- 
crease the effort; but I conceive that there may be 
helpful light, as well as reassuring warmth, in the 
attention and sympathy I gratefully acknowledge. 
London, May 14, 1872 

I wrote "Sordello" twenty-five years ago for only 
a few, counting even in these on somewhat more care 
about its subject than they really had. My own faults 
of expression were m.any ; but with care for a man or 
book such would be surmounted, and without it, what 
avails the faultlessness of either? I blame nobody, 
least of all myself, who did my best then and since; 
for I lately gave time and pains to turn my work into 
what the many might, — instead of what the few must, 
— like: but after all, I imagined another thing at first, 
and therefore leave it as I find it. 

The historical decoration was purposely of no more 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 57 

importance than a background requires ; and my stress 
lay on the incidents in the development of a soul ; little 
else is worth study. I, at least, always thought so — 
you, with many known and unknown to me, think 
so, — others may one day think so. 

Browning seemed as full of dramatic interest in 
reading "In a Balcony" as if he had just written it for 
our benefit 

One who sat near him said that it was a natural 
sequence that the step of the guard should be heard 
coming to take Norbert to his doom, as, with a nature 
like the queen's, who had known only one hour of joy 
in her sterile life, vengeance swift and terrible would 
follow on the sudden destruction of her happiness. 

"Now, I don't quite think that," answered Brown- 
ing, as if he were following out the play as a spectator. 
"The queen has a large and passionate temperament, 
which had only once been touched and brought into 
intense life. 

"She would have died by a knife in her heart. The 
guard would have come to carry away her dead body. 

"But I imagine that most people interpret it as I 
do," was the reply. 

"Then," said Browning, with quick interest, don't 
you think it would be well to put it in the stage direc- 
tions, and have it seem that they were carrying her 
across the back of the stage?" 

Katherine de Kay Bronson 



58 BROWNING 

The subjective poet is impelled to embody the thing 
he perceives, and not so much with the reference to 
many below as to the One above him, the supreme 
Intelligence which apprehends all things in their abso- 
lute truth, — an ultimate view ever aspired to, if but 
partially attained, by the poet's own soul. Not what 
man sees but what God sees, — the Ideas of Plato, seeds 
of creation lying burning on the Divine Hand, — 
it is toward these that he struggles. Not with the 
combination of humanity in action, but with the primal 
elements of humanity, he has to do ; and he digs where 
he stands, — preferring to seek them in his own soul 
as the nearest reflex of that absolute Mind. 

— Essay on Shelley 



For it is with this world, as starting point and basis 
alike that we shall always have to concern ourselves: 
the world is not to be learned and thrown aside, but 
reverted to and relearned. The spiritual comprehen- 
sion may be infinitely subtilized, but the raw material 
it operates upon must remain. There may be no end 
of the poets who communicate to us what they feel 
in an object with reference to their own individuality; 
what it was before they saw it in reference to the 
aggregate human mind will be as desirable to know 
as ever. 

— Essay on Shelley 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 59 

Greatness in a work suggests an adequate instru- 
mentality; and none of the lower incitements, how- 
ever they may avail to initiate or even affect many 
considerable displays of powers, simulating to nobler 
inspiration, to which they are mistakenly referred, 
have been found able under the ordinary conditions 
of humanity, to task themselves to the end of so exact- 
ing a performance as a poet's complete work. 

— Essay on Shelley 



Gradually he (Shelley) was learning that the best 
way of removing abuses is to stand fast by truth. 
Truth is one, as they are manifold; and innumerable 
negative effects are produced by the upholding of one 
positive principle. —Essay on Shelley 



1 concede, however, in respect to the subject of our 
study as well as some few other illustrious examples, 
that the unmistakable quality of the verse would be 
evidence enough, under usual circumstances, not only 
of the kind and degree of the intellectual but of the 
moral constitution of Shelley ; the whole personality of 
the poet shining forward from the poems, without 
much need of going further to seek it. 

— Essay on Shelley 



6o BROWNING 

But Art, — wherein man nowise speaks to men, 
Only to mankind, — Art may tell a truth 
Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, 
Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. 
So may you paint your picture, twice show truth 
Beyond mere imagery on the wall, — 
So, note by note, bring music from your mind. 
Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived, — 
So write a book shall mean beyond the facts. 
Suffice the eye and save the soul beside. 

— Part XII, The Ring and the Book 



Shakespeare! — to such name's sounding, what suc- 
ceeds 
Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell, — 
Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, 

Nor tampers with its m.agic more than needs. 

Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads 
With his soul only: if from lips it fell. 
Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell. 

Would own, "Thou didst create us !" Naught impedes. 

We voice the other name, man's most of might. 
Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love 

Mutely await their working, leave to sight 
All of the issue as — below — above — 
Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove, 

Though dread — this finite from that infinite. 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 6i 

The preliminary step to following Christ, is the 
leaving the dead to bury their dead — not clamoring on 
His doctrine for an especial solution of difficulties 
which are referable to the general problem of the uni- 
verse. — Essay on Shelley 



All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of 
one bee: 
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart 
of one gem: 
In the core of one pearl aU the shade and the shine of 
the sea: 
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — ^wonder, 
wealth, and — ^how far above them — 
Truth, that's brighter than gem, 
Trust, that's purer than pearl, — 
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all were 
for me 
In the kiss of one girl. 



62 BROWNING 

"The Poet's age is sad: for why? 

In youth, the natural world could show 
No common object but his eye 

At once involved with alien glow — 
His own souFs iris-bow. 

"And now a flower is just a flower : 

Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man — 

Simply themselves, uncinct by dower 
Of dyes which, when life's day began, 

Round each in glory ran." 

Friend, did you need an optic glass. 
Which were your choice ? A lens to drape 

In ruby, emerald, chrysopras, 
Each object — or reveal its shape 

Clear outlined, past escape. 

The naked very thing? — so clear 

That, when you had the chance to gaze. 

You found its inmost self appear 

Through outer seeming — truth ablaze, 

Not falsehood's fancy-haze? 

How many a year, my Asolo, 

Since — one step just from sea to land — 
I found you, loved yet feared you so — 

For natural objects seemed to stand 
Palpably fire-clothed! No — 



BROWNING'S POINT OF VIEW 63 

No mastery of mine o*er these! 

Terror with beauty, like the Bush 
Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees, 

Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush! 
Silence 't is awe decrees. 

And now? The lambent flame is — where? 

Lost from the naked world: earth, sky. 
Hill, vale, tree, flower, — Italians rare 

O'er-running beauty crowds the eye — 
But flame? The Bush is bare. 

Hill, vale, tree, flower — they stand distinct, 
Nature to know and name. What then? 

A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked 
Fancy from fact: see, all's in ken: 

Has once my eyelid vnnked? 

No, for the purged ear apprehends 

Earth's import, not the eye late dazed: 
The Voice said "Call my works thy friends! 

At Nature dost thou shrink amazed? 
God is it who transcends." 

— Prologue"^ 
Asolo, Sept. 6, 1889 



*T0 MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON 
To whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses — some few writ- 
ten, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your presence, and with yet 
another experience of the gracious hospitality now bestowed on me since 
so many a year, — adding a charm even to my residences at Venice, and 
leaving me little regret for the surprise and delight at my visits to Atolo 
in bygoae days? * * » 



FOREWORD TO SELECTIONS 



FOREWORD TO SELECTIONS 

a A RT helps us to see : hundreds can talk for one 
^* who can think, but thousands can think for 
one who can see: to see clearly is poetry, prophecy, 
and religion all in one." 

This salient truth was spoken by Ruskin, our great 
high priest of art, a personal friend and neighbor of 
Browning, as Carlyle was also. These three were co- 
workers for the coming on of the kingdom of heaven — 
and the greatest of these? Browning. 

In considering the relative value of the fine arts, we 
must first take cognizance of the all embracing, exceed- 
ing difficult Art of Living, a problem each and all must 
solve every day because Eternity is here and now. 
This pulsating, recording Art takes high precedence, 
Poetry follows, a loving, close second for the obvious 
reason that it is the incisive, subtle, interpreter of its 
supreme predecessor. Life; and the study of literature 
from the earliest to the latest reign has taught us that 
Poetry is its quintessence, by the virtue of the poet's 
power to see. Art — holding that it always signifies 
the struggle towards perfection — is the manifestation 
of the Infinite thru the medium of the Finite. The Art 

67 



68 BROWNING 

of Living is our ideal, expressed in action. This is not 
catalogued in the school curriculum, Life alone is the 
teacher. All other arts are ideals embodied in form, 
and Life is here the teacher also. In so far as we reach 
toward our ideals thru action, reduce the imperfect 
form to the near-perfect, dissolve discordant sounds 
into deep melody, do we lay hold on the Infinite. Poets 
have the transcendent power to "see clearly," and it is 
a delight to stand close to a clear-thinking mind, com- 
bined with a tender, boundless sympathy, and an un- 
swerving faith in the indissoluble bond between every 
soul and its Maker. Such a poet is Robert Browning. 

It is never just to a dramatist to credit him person- 
ally with the opinions or convictions expressed by the 
children of his brain. Surely young Hamlet's agoniz- 
ing wail, "Frailty, thy name is woman," can not be 
Shakespeare's sober dictum, whatever we may think of 
that incident of "the second-best feather bed." 

In the following pages Browning's "fifty men and 
women" speak for themselves — in their own name, and 
it would be somewhat difficult to gather an equal num- 
ber of men and women from the pages of any other 
author whose lustre would dim the stars in this galaxy. 

Here we have the incomparable Balaustion ; the ideal 
Colombe, leaving the dukedom and hastening to 
Cleves with the heroic Valence ; Domizia, rising respon- 
sive to the nobility of Luria ; elusive Aprile, shrinking 
Ignotus, politic Ogniben, Cleon, whose culture hides 



FOREWORD TO SELECTIONS 69 

the hope of immortality; suffering Mildred, the in- 
effably tender Mertoun, the brave Anael, despicable 
Sebald, ready to save himself and leave the woman he 
has wronged ; Jules, gladly breaking his paltry models 
up that he may attain to greater heights by the new 
vision. 

The necessary limit-line of this book prevents many 
other "Men and Women" from expressing their views, 
and also excludes innumerable choice bits of love and 
lore to be found in the almost inexhaustible store- 
house of erudition from which we have gathered these. 



SELECTIONS 



SELECTIONS 

THERE they are, my fifty men and women, 
Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
Take them, Love, the book and me together : 
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 

One Word More* 

How can we guard our unbelief, 

Make it bear fruit to us ? — the problem here. 

Just where we are safest, there's a sunset-touch, 

A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, 

A chorus-ending from Euripides, — 

And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears 

As old and new at once as nature's self. 

To rap and knock and enter in our soul. 

Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, 

Round the ancient idol, on his base again, — 

The grand Perhaps ! Bishop Blougram 

— Bishop Bloiigram's Apology 

Why crown whom Zeus has crowned before? 

Balaustion 

— Balaustion' s Adventure 



[•Originally appended to the collection of Poems called "Men and Women," 
the greater portion of which has now been, more correctly, distrihuted iinder 
the other titles of this edition. — R. B.] 

73 



74 BROWNING 

So let him wait God's instant men call years : 
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul, 
Do out the duty ! Through such souls alone 
God stooping shows sufficient of His light 
For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise. 

Pompilia 
— The Ring and the Book 

And for the rest, 
I cannot tell thy messenger aright 
Where to deliver what he bears of thine 
To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame 
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him — 
I know not, nor am troubled m^uch to know. 
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew 
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised. 
Hath access to a secret shut from us? 
Thou wrongest our Philosophy, O king, 
In stooping to inquire of such an one, 
As if his answer could impose at all! 
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write. 
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves 
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and 

Christ ; 
And (as I gathered from a by-stander) 
Their doctrine could be held by no sane man. 

Cleon 
— Cleon 



SELECTIONS 75 

I have heard of those who seemed 
Resourceless in prosperity, — you thought 
Sorrow might slay them when she listed ; yet 
Did they so gather up their diffused strength 
At her first menace, that they bade her strike, 
And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn. 
Oh ! 'tis not so with me ! 

Mildred 
— A Blot ill the 'Scutcheon 

The love of peace, care for the family. 
Contentment with what's bad but might be worse — 
Good movements these! and good, too, discontent, 
So long as that spurs good, which might be best, 
Into becoming better, anyhow. 

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (Napoleon III) 

— Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau 

I have done with being judged. 
I stand here guiltless in thought, word and deed. 
To the point that I apprise you — in contempt 
For all misapprehending ignorance 
Of the human heart, much more the mind of Christ, — 
That I assuredly did bow, was blessed 
By the revelation of Pompilia. 

Caponsacchi 
— The Ring and the Book 



76 BROWNING 

God must be glad one loves His world so much. 

I can give news of earth to all the dead 

Who ask me: — last year's sunsets, and great stars 

That had a right to come first and see ebb 

The crimson wave that drifts the sun away — 

Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims 

That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood, 

Impatient of the azure — and that day 

In March, a double rainbow, moonlit summer nights — 

May's warm, slov/, j^ellow moonlit summer nights — 

Gone are they, but I have them in my soul! 

Luigi 
— Pippa Passes 

The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: 
Try to be Shakespeare! 

Bishop Blougram 

— Bishop Blou gram's Apology 

I know that the great 
For pleasure born, should still be on the watch 
To exclude pleasure when a Duty offers: 
Even as, the lowly too for Duty bom. 
May ever snatch a pleasure if in reach: 
Both will have plenty of their birthright, Sir! 

Valence 
— Colomhe's Birthday 



SELECTIOlSfS 77 

Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true ! 
And love's the truth of mine. Time prove the rest! 

Norbert 

— In a Balcony 

I trust in God — the right shall be the right 
And other than the wrong while He endures : 
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive 
The outward and the inward, nature's good 
And God's: so, seeing these men and myself. 
Having a right to speak, thus do I speak. 

Chiappino 
— A Sours Tragedy 

I take aught 
That teaches me their wrongs with greater pride 
Than this your ducal circlet. The Duchess 

— Colomhe's Birthday 

God made all the creatures and gave them our love and 

our fear. 
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family 
here. David 

— Saul 
The valley-level has its hawks no doubt: 
May not the rock-top have its eagles, too? 

The Duchess 
— Colomhe's Birthday 



78 BROWNING 

You creature with the eyes! 
If I could look forever up to them, 
As now you let me, I believe, all sin. 
All memory of wrong done, suffering borne, 
Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth 
Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and 

stay — 
Never to overtake the rest of me. 
All that, unspotted, reaches up to you. 
Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself, 
Not m.e the shame and suffering; but they sink. 
Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so 
Above the world! 

Phene 
— Pippa Passes 



I am for noble Aureole, God! 
I am upon his side, come weal or woe, 
His portion shall be mine. He has done well. 
I would have sinned, had I been strong enough, 
As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive 
Reward ! If thou canst find no place for him. 
He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be 
His slave forever. There are two of us. 

Festus 
— Paracelsus 



SELECTIONS 79 

And wisely. (He is Anael's brother, pure 
As AnaeFs self.) Go say, I come to her. 
Haste! I will follow you. 

Oh, not confess 
To these, the blinded multitude — confess. 
Before at least the fortune of my deed 
Half-authorize its means! Only to her 
Let me confess my fault, who in my path 
Curled up like incense from a Mage-king's tomb 
When he would have the wayfarer descend 
Through the earth's rift and bear hid treasure forth ! 
How should child's carelessness prove manhood's 

crime 
Till now that I, whose lone youth hurried past, 
Letting each joy 'scape for the Druses' sake. 
At length recover in one Druse all joy? 
Were her brow brighter, her eyes richer, still 
Would I confess. On the gulf's verge I pause. 
How could I slay the Prefect, thus and thus? 
Anael, be mine to guard me, not destroy ! 

Djabal 
— The Return of the Druses 

Moreover, say that certain sin there seem. 
The proper process of unsinning sin 
Is to begin well-doing somehow else. 

Tertium Quid 
— The Ring and the Book 



8o BROWNING 

A pretty woman's worth some pains to see, 
Nor is she spoiled, I take it, if a crown 
Complete the forehead pale or tresses pure . 

Guibert 

— Colomhe's Birthday 

Djabal, I knew your secret from the first: 

Djabal, when first I saw you . . . (by our porch 

You leant, and pressed the tinkling veil away, 

And one fringe fell behind your neck — I see!) 

. . . I knew you were not human, for I said 

"This dim secluded house where the sea beats 

Is heaven to me — my people's huts are hell 

To them ; this august form will follow me, 

Mix with the waves his voice will, — I have him; 

And they, the Prefect ! Oh, my happiness 

Rounds to the full whether I choose or no ! 

His eyes met mine, he was about to speak, 

His hand grew damp — surely he meant to say 

He let me love him : in that moment's bliss 

I shall forget my people pine for home — 

They pass and they repass with pallid eyes!" 

I vowed at once a certain vow ; this vow — 

Not to embrace you till my tribe was saved. 

Embrace me! 

Anael 
— The Return of the Druses 



SELECTIONS 8i 

Ay, Anael, Anael,— is that said at last? 

Louder than all, that would be said, I knew! 

What does abjuring mean, confessing mean, 

To the people? Till that woman crossed my path, 

On went I, solely for my people's sake : 

I saw her, and I then first saw myself. 

And slackened pace: "if I should prove indeed 

Hakeem— with Anael by !" D jabal 

—■The Return of the Druses 

Trade in the dear Druses? 
Blood and sweat traffic? Spare what yesterday 
We heard enough of! Drove I in the Isle 
A profitable game? Learn wit, my son. 
Which you'll need shortly! Did it never breed 
Suspicion in you, all was not pure profit. 
When I, the insatiate . ,.> . and so forth— was 

bent 
On having a partaker in my rule? 
Why did I yield this Nuncio half the gain, 
If not that I might also shift— what on him? 
Half of the peril, Loys ! Prefect 

—The Return of the Druses 

Yes, I see now. God is the perfect Poet, 
Who in His person acts His own creations. 

Aprile 
— Paracelsus 



82 BROWNING 

And am I not the Prefect now? 
Is it my fate to be the only one 
Able to win her love, the only one 
Unable to accept her love? The past 
Breaks up beneath my footing : came I here 
This morn as to a slave, to set her free 
And take her thanks, and then spend day by day 
Content beside her in the Isle? What works 
This knowledge in me now? Her eye has broken 
The faint disguise away: for Anael's sake 
I left the Isle, for her espoused the cause 
Of the Druses, all for her I thought, till now. 
To live without! 

As I must live ! To-day 
Ordains me Knight, forbids me . . . never shall 
Forbid me to profess myself, heart, arm, 
Thy soldier! 

Loys 
— The Return of the Druses 



The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's. 
Is — not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be, — but, finding first 
What may be, then find how to make it fair 
Up to our means : a very different thing ! 

Bishop Blougram 
— Bishop Blougram* s Apology 



SELECTIONS 83 

Were I elect like you, 

I would encircle me with love, and raise 

A rampart of my fellows. 

Festus 

— Paracelsus 



We shall not meet in this world nor the next, 
But where will God be absent? In His face 
Is life, but in His shadow healing too ; 
Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed. 

Pompilia 
— TJie Ring and the Book 



Thou art my single holiday God lends to leaven 
What were all earth else with a feel of heaven. 

To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk 

The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk: 

But this one day I have leave to go, 

And play out my fancy's fullest games; 

I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 

That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names 

Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo ! 

Pippa 
— Pippa Passes 



84 BROWNING 

Lied is a rough phrase: say he fell from the truth 
In climbing towards it! — sure less faulty so 
Than had he sat him down and stayed content 
With thy safe orthodoxy, "White all white, 
White everywhere for certain I should see 
Did I but understand how white is black. 
As clearer sense than mine would." Clearer sense, — 
Whose may that be? mere human eyes I boast. 
And such distinguish colors in the main, 
However any tongue, that's human too. 
Please to report the matter. 

Ferishtah 
— Fe risk fan's Fancies 



What's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith? 

Bishop Blougram 

— Bishop Blougram' s Apology 



Sirs: I obeyed. Obedience v/as too strange — 
This new thing that had been struck into me. 
By the look o' the lady, — to dare disobey 
The first authoritative word. 'Twas God's. 
I had been lifted to the level of her, 
Could take such sounds into my sense. 

Caponsacchi 
— The Ring and the Book 



SELECTIONS 85 

Rather tear men out the heart 
O' the truth! Sordello 

— Sordello 

. . . 'Tis man's cause! 
Fail thou, and thine own fall is least to dread. 

Luria 
— Luria 

My business is not to remake myself, » 

But make the absolute best of what God made. I 

Bishop Blougram 
— Bishop Blougram's Apology 

The more I thank God, like my grandmother,* 

For making me a little lower than 

The angels honor-clothed and glory-crowned: 

This is the honor,— that no thing I know, 

Feel or conceive, but I can make my own 

Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart: 

This is the glory,— that in all conceived, 

Or felt or known, I recognize a mind 

Not mine but like mine, — for the double joy, — 

Making all things for me and me for Him. 

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (Napoleon III) 
— Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau 



Empress Josephine 



86 BROWNING 

I proclaim 
The angel in thee, and reject the sprites 
Which ineffectual crowd about his strength, 
And mingle with his work and claim a share ! 
Unconsciously to the augustest end 
Thou hast arisen : second not in rank 
So much as time, to him who first ordained 
That Florence, thou art to destroy, should be. 
Yet him a star, too, guided, who broke first 
The pride of lonely power, the life apart. 
And made the eminences, each to each. 
Lean o'er the level world and let it lie 
Safe from the thunder henceforth *neath their tops; 
So the few famous men of old combined. 
And let the multitude rise underneath. 
And reach them and unite — so Florence grew : 
Braccio speaks true, it is well worth the price. 

Domizia 
— Luria 



First of the first, 
Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now 
Perfect in whiteness : ... Go past me 
And get thy praise — and be not far to seek 
Presently when I follow if I may! 

The Pope 
— The Ring and the Book 



SELECTIONS 87 

The prize is the process: knowledge means 
Ever-renewed assurance by defeat 
That victory is somehow still to reach, 
But love is victory, the prize itself. 

Ferishtah 
— Ferishtah' s Fancies 



*Twas a text 
Whereon folks preached and praised, the district 

through. 
"Oh make us happy and you make us good! 
It all comes of God giving her a child: 
Such graces follow God's best earthly gift." 

Tertium Quid 
— The Ring and the Book 



Then 
You were wrong, you see; that's well to see though 

late: 
That's all we may expect of man this side 
The grave; his good is — knowing he is bad. 
Thus will it be with us when the books ope 
And we stand at the bar on judgment day. 

Caponsacchi 
— The Ring and the Book 



88 BROWNING 

Rejoice we are allied 
To that which doth provide 
And not partake, effect and not receive! 
A spark disturbs our clod; 
Nearer we hold of God 

Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 
— Rabbi Ben Ezra 

Then, welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough. 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 
Be our joys three parts pain ! 
Strive and hold cheap the strain; 
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the 
throe ! 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 
— Rabbi Ben Ezra 

Yet gifts should prove their use: 
I own the past profuse 
Of power each side, perfection every turn: 
Eyes, ears took in their dole. 
Brain treasured up the whole ; 

Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and 
learn?" 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 
— Rabbi Ben Ezra 



SELECTIONS 89 

There's not the meanest woman in the world. 
Not she I least could love in all the world, 
Whom, did she love me, had love proved itself, 
I dare insult as you insult me now. 
Constance, I could say, if it must be said, 
"Take back the soul you offer, I keep mine!" 
But — "Take the soul still quivering on your hand, 
The soul so offered, which I cannot use, 
And, please you, give it to some playful friend, 
For — what's the trifle he requites me with?" 
I, tempt a woman, to amuse a man, 
That two may mock her heart if it succumb? 
No: fearing God and standing 'neath His heaven, 
I would not dare insult a woman so. 
Were she the meanest woman in the world, 
And he, I cared to please, ten emperors! 

Norbert 
— In a Balcony 



I cannot chain my soul : it will not rest 
In its clay prison, this most narrow sphere: 
It has strange impulse, tendency, desire 
Which nowise I account for nor explain, 
But cannot stifle, being bound to trust 
All feelings equally, to hear all sides. 

The Lover 
— Pauline 



go BROWNING 

But how carve way i' the life that lies before, 
If bent on groaning ever for the past? • 

Balaustion 

— Balaustion' s Adventure 

False I will never — rash I would not be! 

This is indeed my birthday — soul and body, 

Its hours have done on me the work of years. 

You hold the requisition : ponder it ! 

If I have right, my duty's plain: if he — 

Say so, nor ever change a tone of voice! 

At night you meet the Prince ; meet me at eve ! 

Till when, farewell! This discomposes you? 

Believe in your nature, and its force 

Of renovating mine ! I take my stand 

Only as under me the earth is firm. 

The Duchess 
— Colomhes Birthday 

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. 
Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey, 
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! 
I know both v/hat I want and what might gain; 
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 
"Had I been two, another and myself. 
Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No 
doubt. Andrea del Sarto 

— Andrea del Sarto 



SELECTIONS 91 

Be a god and hold me 

With a charm ! 
Be a man and fold me 

With thine arm ! 

Teach me, only teach, Love ! 

As I ought 
I will speak thy speech, Love, 

Think thy thought. ^^^ ^^^^ 

— A Woman's Last Word 
So, for her sake, as yours, I tell you twice 
That women hate a debt as men a gift. 
If I were you, I could obtain this grace — 
Could lay the whole I did to love's account. 
Nor yet be very false as courtiers go — 
Declaring my success was recompense; 
It would be so, in fact: what were it else? 
And then, once loose her generosity, — 
Oh, how I see it!— then, were I but you, 
To turn it, let it seem to move itself, 
And make it offer what I really take. 
Accepting just, in the poor cousin's hand. 
Her value as the next thing to the Queen's — 
Since none love Queens directly, none dare that. 
And a thing's shadow or a name's mere echo 
Suffices those who miss the name and thing! 

Constance 
— In a Balcony 



92 BROWNING 

How soon a smile of God can change the world! 
How we are made for happiness — how work 
Grows play, adversity a winning fight ! 
True, I have lost so many years: what then? 
Many remain: God has been very good. 
You, stay here! 'Tis as different from dreams, 
From the mind's cold calm estimate of bliss. 
As these stone statues from the flesh and blood. 
The comfort thou hast caused mankind, God's moon! 

The Queen 
— In a Balcony 



For the main criminal I have no hope 

Except in such a suddenness of fate. 

I stood at Naples once, a night so dark 

I could have scarce conjectured there was earth 

Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: 

But the night's black was burst through by a blaze — 

Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, 

Through her whole length of mountain visible : 

There lay the city thick and plain with spires. 

And like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. 

So may the truth be flashed out by one blow. 

And Guido see, one instant, and be saved. 

Else I avert my face, nor follow him 

Into that sad obscure sequestered state 

Where God unmakes but to remake the soul 



SELECTIONS 93 

He else made first in vain; which must not be. 

Enough, for I may die this very night, 

And how should I dare die, this man let live? 

The Pope 
— The Ring and the Book 

Knowledge and power have rights. 

But ignorance and weakness have rights too. 

There needs no crucial effort to find truth 

If here or there or anywhere about : 

We ought to turn each side, try hard and see, 

And if we can't, be glad we've earned at least 

The right, by one laborious proof the more, 

To graze in peace earth's pleasant pasturage. 

Men are not angels, neither are they brutes : 

Something we may see, all we cannot see. 

Bishop Blougram 
— Bishop Blougram's Apology 

As I dare approach that Heaven 

Which has not bade a living thing despair, 

Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain, 

But bids the vilest worm that turns on it 

Desist and be forgiven, — I — forgive not. 

But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls ! 

Mildred 
— A Blot in the 'Scutcheon 



94 BROWNING 

To have to do with nothing but the true, 
The good, the eternal, — and these, not alone 
In the main current of the general life, 
But small experiences of every day, 
Concerns of the particular hearth and home. 

Caponsacchi 
— The Ring and the Book 

There was a young fellow here, Jules, a foreign 
sculptor, I did my utmost to advance, that the Church 
might be a gainer by us both: he was going on hope- 
fully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me some 
marvelous change that has happened in his notions of 
art. 

Here's his letter : "He never had a clearly conceived 
ideal within his brain till to-day. 

"Yet since his hand could manage a chisel, he has 
practised expressing other men's ideals; and, in the 
very perfection he has attained, he foresees an ultimate 
failure: his unconscious hand will pursue its pre- 
scribed course of old years, and will reproduce with a 
fatal expertness the ancient types, let the novel one 
appear never so palpably to his spirit. There is but 
one method of escape : confiding the virgin type to as 
chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor, 
and paint, not carve, its characteristics." 

Monsignor 
— Pip pa Passes 



SELECTIONS 95 

Gladness be with thee, Helper of our world! 

I think this is the authentic sign and seal 

Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad," 

And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts 

Into a rage to suffer for mankind, 

And recommence at sorrow : drops like seed 

After the blossom, ultimate of all. 

Say, does the seed scorn earth and seek the sun? 

Surely it has no other end and aim 

Than to drop, once more die into the ground, 

Taste cold and darkness and oblivion there : 

And thence rise, tree-like, grow through pain to joy. 

More joy and most joy, — do man good again. 

Balaustion 
-^ — Balaustion' s Adventure 



The power I sought for man, seemed God's. 
In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die, 
A strange adventure made me know, one sin 
Had spotted my career from its uprise ; 
I saw Aprile — ^my Aprile there! 
And as the poor melodious wretch disburthened 
His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear, 
I learned my own deep error; love's undoing 
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate, 
And what proportion love should hold with power 
In his right constitution; love preceding 



96 BROWNING 

Power, and with much power, always much more love; 
Love still too straitened in his present means, 
And earnest for new power to set love free. 

Paracelsus 

— Paracelsus 

"Stay!" she said. "Keep at least one soul unspecked 

With crime, that's spotless hitherto — your own! 

Kill me who court the blessing, who alone 

Was, am, and shall be guilty, first to last! 

The man lay helpless in the toils I cast 

About him, helpless as the statue there 

Against that strangling bell-flower's bondage: tear 

Away and tread to dust the parasite. 

But do the passive marble no despite ! 

I love him as I hate you. Kill me! Strike 

At one blow both infinitudes alike 

Out of existence — ^hate and love! Whence love? 

That's safe inside my heart, nor will remove 

For any searching of your steel, I think." 

The Wife 
— A Forgiveness 

She had 
A heart — ^how shall I say? — ^too soon made glad. 
Too easily impressed ; she liked whate'er 
She looked on, and her looks went everjrwhere. 
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast. 



SELECTIONS 97 

The dropping of the daylight in the West, 
The bough of cherries some officious fool 
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 
She rode with round the terrace — all and each 
Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,— good! but 

thanked 
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 
This sort of trifling? 

The Duke 
— My Last Duchess 

Oh ! to love less what one has injured ! Dove, 
Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast- 
Shall my heart's warmth not nurse thee into strength? 
Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for thee? 
Bloom o'er my crest, my fight-mark and device ! 
Mildred, I love you and you love me ! 

Mertoun 
— A Blot in the 'Scutcheon 

Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue, 
Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash. 
And then add soul and heighten them three-fold? 
Or say there's beauty with no soul at all — 
(I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 



98 BROWNING 

If you get simple beauty and naught else, 

You get about the best thing God invents : 

That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have 

missed, 
Within yourself, when you return Him thanks. 

Fra Lippo Lippi 
— Fra Lippo Lippi 



What dost thou verily trip upon a word. 

Confound the accurate view of what joy is 

(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine) 

With feeling joy? confound the knowing how 

And showing how to live (my faculty) 

With actually living? — Otherwise 

Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king? 

Because in my great epos I display 

How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act — 

Is this as though I acted? if I paint, 

Carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young? 

Methinks I'm older that I bowed myself 

The many years of pain that taught me art! 

Indeed, to know is something, and to prove 

How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more : 

But, knowing naught, to enjoy is something too. 

Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there. 

Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I. 

I can write love-odes: thy fair slave's an ode. 



SELECTIONS 99 

I get to sing of love, when grown too gray 
For being beloved: she turns to that young man, 
The muscles all a-ripple on his back. Cleon 

— Cleon 

I often am much wearier than you think 
This evening more than usual : and it seems 
As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
Here by the window, with your hand in mine, 
And look a half hour forth on Fiesole, 
Both of one mind, as married people use, 
Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
I might get up to-morrow to my work 
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this ! 
Your soft hand is a woman of itself. 
And mine, the man's bared breast she curls inside. 

Andrea del Sarto 
— Andrea del Sarto 

"Since I could die now of the truth concealed. 
Yet dare not, must not die— so seems revealed 
The Virgin's mind to me — for death means peace, 
Wherein no lawful part have I whose lease 
Of life and punishment the truth avowed 
May haply lengthen,— let me push the shroud 
Away, that steals to mufile ere is just 
My penance-fire in snow! I dare — I must 



100 BROWNING 

Live, by avowal of the truth — this truth — 

I loved you ! Thanks for the fresh serpent's tooth 

That, by a prompt new pang more exquisite 

Than all preceding torture, proves me right! 

I loved you yet I lost you ! May I go 

Burn to the ashes, now my shame you know?" 

The Wife 
— A Forgiveness 

Who summoned those cold laces that begun 
To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped 

Shrinking as from the soldiery a nun, 
They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough ! 

These buy and sell our pictures, take and give. 
Count them for garniture and household stuff. 

And where they live needs must our picture live 
And see their faces, listen to their prate, 

Partakers of their daily pettiness. 
Discussed of, — "This I love, or this I hate, 

This likes me more, and this affects me less !" 
Wherefore I choose my portion. If at whiles 

My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint 
These endless cloisters and eternal isles 

With the same series. Virgin, Babe, and Saint, 
With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard, — 

At least no merchant traffics in my heart. 

Pictor Ignotus 
— Pictor Ignotus 



SELECTIONS loi 

But this does overwhelm me with surprise, 
Touch me to terror— not that faith, the pearl. 
Should be let lie by fishers wanting food,— 
Nor seen and handled by a certain few 
Critical and contemptuous, straight consigned 
To shore and shingle for the pebble it proves,— 
But that, when haply found and known and named 
By thy residue made rich for evermore, 
These,— these favored ones, should in a trice 
Turn, and with double zest go dredge for welks. 
Mud- worms that make the savory soup! 

The Pope 
— The Ring and the Book 



Then, Lady Blanche, it less would move 

In heart and soul of me disgust 
Did you strip off those spoils you wear. 
And stand— for thanks, not shillings— bare, 
To help Art like any Model there. 
She well knew what absolved her— praise 

In me for God's surpassing good. 
Who granted to my reverent gaze 

A type of purest womanhood. 
You — clothed with murder of His best 
Of harmless beings— stand the test! 
What is it you know? He 

— The Lady and the Painter 



102 BROWNING 

If you loved only what were worth your love, 
Love were clear gain and wholly well for you: 
Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above. 

James Lee's Wife 

Little girl with the poor coarse hand 

I turned from to a cold clay cast — 
I have my lesson, understand 

The worth of flesh and blood at last. 
Nothing but beauty in a hand? 

Because he could not change the hue, 

Mend the lines and make them true 
To this which met his soul's demand, — 

Would Da Vinci turn from you? 

James Lee's Wife 

Life! Yet the very cup whose extreme dull 
Dregs, even, I would quaff, was dashed, at full, 
Aside so oft; the death I fly, revealed 
So oft a better life this life concealed. 
And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path 
Have hunted fearlessly — the horrid bath. 
The crippling-irons and the fiery chair. 
'T was well for them ; let me become aware 
As they, and I relinquished life, too ! Let 
What masters life disclose itself ! Forget 



SELECTIONS 103 

Vain ordinances, I have one appeal — 

I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel ; 

So much is truth to me. What Is, then? Since 

One object, viewed diversely, may evince 

Beauty and ugliness — this way attract. 

That way repel,— why gloze upon the fact? 

Why must a single of the sides be right? 

What bids choose this and leave the opposite? 

Where's abstract Right for me? — in youth endued 

With Right still present, still to be pursued, 

Thro' all the interchange of circles, rife 

Each with its proper law and mode of life, 

Each to be dwelt at ease in : where, to sway 

Absolute with the Kaiser, or obey 

Implicit with his serf of fluttering heart. 

Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to start 

Up, Brutus in the presence, then go shout 

That some should pick the unstrung jewels out — 

Each, well. Sordello 

— Sordello 

What my soul? See thus far and no farther? When 

doors great and small, 
Nine-and-ninety flew open at our touch, should the 

hundredth appall? 
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the 

greatest of all? 
Do I find love so full in my nature God's ultimate gift. 



104 BROWNING 

That I doubt His own love can compete with it? Here, 

the parts shift? 
Here, the creature surpass the Creator — the end, what 

began? 
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this 

man, 
And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who yet 

alone can? 
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, 

much less power. 
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvelous 

dower 
Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such 

a soul. 
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the 

whole? 

David 
— Saul 



How plainly is true greatness charactered 
By such unconscious sport as Luria's here, 
Strength sharing least the secret of itself ! 
Be it with head that schemes or hand that acts. 
Such save the world which none but they could save, 
Yet think whatever they did, that world could do. 

Domizia 
— Liiria 



SELECTIONS 105 

Now, I'll say something to remember. 
I trust in nature for the stable laws 
Of beauty and utility. — Spring shall plant. 
And Autumn gamer to the end of time : 
I trust in God — the right shall be the right 
And other than the wrong, while he endures : 
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive 
The outward and the inward, nature's good 
And God's : so, seeing these men and myself. 
Having a right to speak, thus do I speak. 
I'll not curse — God bears with them, well may I — 
But I — protest against their claiming me. 
I simply say, if that's allowable, 
I would not (broadly) do as they have done. 

Chiappino 
— A Soul's Tragedy 

What's poetry except a power that makes? 
And, speaking to one's sense, inspires the rest. 
Pressing them all into its service ; so 
That who sees painting, seems to hear as well 
The speech that's proper for the painted mouth ; 
And who hears music, feels his solitude 
Peopled at once — for how count heart-beats plain 
Unless a company, with hearts which beat, 
Come close to the musician, seen or no? 
And who receives true verse at eye or ear. 
Takes in (with verse) time, place, and person too, 



io6 BROWNING 

So, links each sense on to its sister-sense, 
Grace-like : and what if but one sense of three 
Front you at once? The sidelong pair conceive 
Through faintest touch of finest finger-tips, — 
Hear, see, and feel, in faith's simplicity. 
Alike, what one was sole recipient of : 
Who hears the poem, therefore, sees the play. 

Balaustion 
— Balaustion' s Adventure 



Our duty is to live one life, not two ! 

Balaustion 

— Balaustion' s Adventure 



For all, love greatens and glorifies 
Till God's a-glow to the loving eyes. 
In what was mere earth before. 

Jaijies Lee's Wife 



Was the trial sore? 
Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time! 
Why come temptation but for a man to meet 
And master and make crouch beneath his foot. 
And so be pedestaled in triumph. 

The Pope 



SELECTIONS 107 

The moral sense grows but by exercise. 
'Tis even as man grew probatively 
Initiated in Godship, set to make 
A fairer moral world than this he finds. 
Guess now what shall be known hereafter. 

The Pope 

Foolish Jules! and yet, after all, why foolish? He 
may — probably will, fail egregiously; but if there 
should arise a new painter, will it not be in some such 
way by a poet now, or a musician — spirits who have 
conceived and perfected an ideal through some other 
channel — transferring it to this, and escaping our con- 
ventional roads by pure ignorance of them. 

Monsignor 
— Pippa Passes 

He's gone. Oh ! I'll believe him every word ! 

I was so young, I loved him so, I had 

No mother, God forgot me, and I fell. 

There may be pardon yet; all's doubt beyond. 

Surely the bitterness of death is passed! _^.,^ , 
^ ^ Mildred 

— A Blot in the 'Scutcheon 

'Tis work for work's sake that man's needing: 
Let him work on and on as if speeding 
Work's end, but not dream of succeeding. 

Pacchiarotto 
— Pacchiarotto 



io8 BROWNING 

Saints to do us good 
Must be in heaven, I seem to understand. 
We never find them saints before at least. 

Caponsacchi 
— The Ring and the Book 



I talk impertinently, and you hear 
All the same. This it is to have to do 
With honest hearts : they easily may err, 
But in the main they wish well to truth. 

Caponsacchi 
— The Ring and the Book 

Man shrinks to naught 
If matched with symbols of immensity; 
Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet sky 
Or sea, too little for their quietude. 

Eglamor 
— S or del 1 

Hans must not bum Kant's house above his head 
Because he Ceinnot understand Kant's book. 
And still less must his pastor bum Kant's self 
Because Kant understands some books too well. 
Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (Napoleon III) 

— Prince Hohcnstiel-Schzvangau 



SELECTIONS 109 

Right promptly done is twice right : right delayed 
Turns wrong. 

Dominus Hyacinthus De Archangelis 

— The Ring and the Book 

There's heaven above, and night by night 
I look right through its gorgeous roof ; 
No suns and moons though e'er so bright 
Avail to stop me ; splendor-proof 
I keep the brood of stars aloof: 
For I intend to get to God, 
For 'tis to God I speed so fast. 
For in God's breast, my own abode. 
Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed, 
I lay my spirit down at last. Agricola 

— Johannes of Agricola in Meditation 

How inexhaustibly the spirit grows ! 
One object, she seemed erewhile bom to reach 
With her whole energies and die content, — 
So like a wall at the world's edge it stood. 
With naught beyond the world to live for, is that 

reached? 
Already are new undreamed energies 
Outgrowing under, and extending farther 
To a new object; there's another world. 

Domizia 
— Luria 



no BROWNING 

Let us not always say 
"Spite of this flesh to-day 

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" 
As the bird wings and sings, 
Let us cry "All good things 

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh 
helps soul." Rabbi Ben Ezra 

— Rabbi Ben Ezra 

For more is not reserved 
To man, with soul just nerved 
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day; 
Here, work enough to watch 
The Master work, and catch 

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 
— Rabbi Ben Ezra 

To Ancona — Greece — some isle! 
I wanted silence only ! there is clay 
Everywhere. One may do whatever one likes 
In art ; the only thing is, to make sure 
That one does like it — which takes pains to know. 
Scatter all this, my Phene — this mad dream! 
Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends. 
What the whole world except our love — my own. 
Own Phene? But I told you, did I not. 
Ere ni^ht we travel for your land — some isle 



SELECTIONS in 

With the sea's silence on it? Stand aside— 

I do but break these paltry models up 

To begin art afresh. Jules 

— Pippa Passes 

There is no good of life but love, but love ! 
What else looks good is some shade flung from love- 
Love gilds it, gives it worth. The Queen 

— In a Balcony 

Because not one of Berthold's words and looks 
Had gone with love's presentment of a flower 
To the beloved; because bold confidence, 
Open superiority, free pride — 
Love owns not. Valence 

— Colomhes Birthday 

Hear Cleves! 
Whose haggard craftsman rose to starve this day, 
Starve now, and will lie down at night to starve, 
Sure of a like to-morrow — but as sure 
Of a most unlike to-morrow — after — that. 
Since end things must, end howsoe'er things may. 
What curbs the brute-force instinct in its hour? 
What makes — instead of rising, all as one. 
And teaching fingers, so expert to wield 
Their tool, the broadsword's play or carbine's trick— 
What makes that there's an easier help, they think. 



112 BROWNING 

For you, whose name so few of them can spell, 

Whose face scarce one of them in every hundred saw- 

You simply have to understand their wrongs, 

And wrongs will vanish — so, still trades are plied, 

And swords lie rusting, and myself stand here? 

There is a vision in the heart of each 

Of justice, mercy, wisdom, tenderness 

To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its cure; 

And these embodied in a woman's form 

That best transmits them, pure as first received. 

From God above her, to mankind below. 

Will you derive your rule from such a ground, 

Or rather hold it by the suffrage, say, 

Of this man — this — and this? 

Valence 
— Colomhe's Birthday 



I answered, "He will come." 
And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up 
To God the strong, God the beneficent, 
God ever mindful in all strife and strait. 
Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme. 
Till at the last he puts forth might and saves. 

Pompilia 
— The Ring and the Book 



SELECTIONS 113 

Yet seems this patriotism 
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 
To acquire ! He loves himself, and next, the world — 
If he must love beyond — but naught between: 
As a short-sighted man sees naught midway 
His body and the sun above. Mother 

— Pip pa Passes 

Why, you must deal with people broadly. Begin at 
a distance from this matter and say, — New truths, old 
truths! sirs, there is nothing new possible to be re- 
vealed to us in the moral world ; we know all we shall 
ever know : and it is for simply reminding us, by their 
various respective expedients, how we do know this 
and the other matter, that men get called prophets, 
poets and the like. A philosopher's life is spent in dis- 
covering that, of the half-dozen truths he knew when 
a child, such an one is a lie, as the world states it in 
set terms; and then, after a weary lapse of years, and 
plenty of hard-thinking, it becomes a truth again after 
all, as he happens newly to consider it and view it in 
a different relation with the others: and so he re- 
states it, to the confusion of somebody else in good 
time. As for adding to the original stock of truths,— 
impossible! Thus, you see the expression of them is 
the grand business: — you have got a truth in your 
head about the right way of governing people, and 
you took a mode of expressing it which now you 



114 BROWNING 

confess to be imperfect. But what then? There is 
truth in falsehood, falsehood in truth. No man ever 
told one great truth, that I know, without the help 
of a good dozen of lies at least, generally unconscious 
ones. Ogniben 

— A Soul's Tragedy 

Sure he's arrived, 
The tell-tale cuckoo — Spring's his confidant. 
And he lets out her April purposes!) 
Or — better go at once to modern time — 
He has — they have — in fact, I understand 
But can't restate the matter; that's my boast: 
Others could reason it out to you, and prove 
Things they have made me feel. Luigi 

— Pippa Passes 

"Your heart's queen, 
you dethrone her? 
So should I!" 

" 'twas mere vanity. 
Not love, set that task to humanity !" 

The King 
— TJie Glove 

Be sure they sleep not whom God needs. 

Paracelsus 
— Paracelsus 



SELECTIONS 115 

"Yea, my King," 
I began, "thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts 

that spring 
From the mere mortal life held in common by man 

and by beasts: 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul 
it bears fruit." David 

— Saul 

Keep but God's model safe, new men will rise, 
To take its mould, and other days to prove 
How great a good was Luria's glory. 

Tiburzio 
— Luria 

How dared I let expand the force 
Within me, till some out-soul, whose resource 
It grew for, should direct it? Every law 
Of life, its every fitness, every flaw. 
Must One determine whose corporeal shape 
Would be no other than the prime escape 
And revelation to me of a Will 
Orb-like o'ershrouded and inscrutable 
Above, save at the point which, I should know. 
Shone that myself, my powers, might overflow 
So far, so much; as now it signified 
Which earthly shape it henceforth chose my guide. 
Whose mortal lip selected to declare 



ii6 BROWNING 

Its oracles, what fleshly garb would wear 

—The first of intimations, whom to love ; 

The next, how love him. Palma 

— Sordello 

You have the fellow-craftsman's sympathy. 
There's none cares, like a fellow of the craft, 
For the all-unestimated sum of pains 
That go to a success the world can see; 
They praise then, but the best they never know 

— While you know! So, if envy mix with it. 
Hate even, still the bottom-praise of all. 
Whatever be the dregs, that drop's pure gold! 

— For nothing's like it; nothing else records 
Those daily, nightly drippings in the dark 
Of the heart's blood, the world lets drop away 
Forever — so, pure gold that praise must be! 
And I have yours, my soldier ! Luria 

— Luria 

How strange! 
Look at the woman here with the new soul. 
Like my own Psyche — fresh upon her lips 
Alit the visionary butterfly. 
Waiting my word to enter and make bright. 
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 
This body had no soul before, but slept 
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free 



SELECTIONS riy 

From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 
Fastened their image on its passiveness; 
Now, it will wake, feel, live — or die again ! 
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff 
Be art — and, further, to evoke a soul 
From form be nothing? This new soul is mine! 

Jules 
— Pippa Passes 

I am judged. 
There burns a truer light of God in them. 
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain. 
Heart, or whatever else, than goes on to prompt 
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. 
Their work drop groundward, but themselves I know 
Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, 
Enter and take their place there sure enough, 
Though they come back and cannot tell the world. 
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 

Andrea del Sarto 
— Andrea del Sarto 

All service ranks the same with God : 

If now, as formerly he trod; 

Paradise, his presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst. 

Are we, there is no last nor first. Pippa 

— Pippa Passes 



ii8 BROWNING 

And doth it, not enter my mind (as my warm tears 
attest), 

These good things given, to go on, and give one more, 
the best? 

Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at 
the height 

This perfection, — succeed with life's dayspring, death's 
minute of night? 

Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mis- 
take, 

Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now, — and bid him 
awake 

From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find 
himself set 

Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a new 
harmony yet 

To be run, and continued and ended — who knows? — 
or endure! 

The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest 
to make sure; 

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified 
bliss, 

And the next world's reward and repose, by the strug- 
gles in this. 

David 
— Saul 



SELECTIONS 119 

The year's at the Spring 
And day's at the morn ; 
Morning's at seven ; 
The hillside's dew-pearled; 
The lark's on the wing ; 
The snail's on the thorn : 
God's in his heaven — 
Airs right with the world I 

Pippa 
— Pippa Passes 



In my own heart love had not been made wise 
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, 
To know even hate is but a mask of love's, 
To see a good in evil, and a hope 
In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud 
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim 
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, 
Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts; 
All with a touch of nobleness, despite 
Their error, upward tending all though weak. 
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
And do their best to climb and get to him. 
All this I knew not, and I failed. 

Paracelsus 
— Paracelsus 



120 BROWNING 

Whereat the hero, who was truth itself, 

Let out the smile again, repressed awhile 

Like fountain-brilliance one forbids to play. 

He did too many grandnesses, to note 

Much in the meaner things about his path : 

And stepping there, with face towards the sun, 

Stopped seldom to pluck weeds or ask their names. 

Therefore he took Admetos at the word: 

This trouble must not hinder any more 

A true heart from good will and pleasant ways. 

And so, the great arm, which had slain the snake, 

Strained his friend's head a moment in embrace 

On that broad breast beneath the lion's hide. 

Till the king's cheek winced at the thick rough gold; 

And then strode off, with who had care of him. 

To the remote guest-chamber: glad to give 

Poor flesh and blood their respite and relief 

In the interval 'twixt fight and fight again — 

All for the world's sake. Our eyes followed him, 

Be sure, till those mid-doors shut us outside. 

The king, too, watched great Herakles go off 

All faith, love, and obedience to a friend. 

Balaustion 
— Balanstion*s Adventure 

Let love trust friend, and love demand its like. 

Luria 

— Luria 



SELECTIONS I2i 

Faster and more fast. 
O'er night's brim day boils at last: 
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim 
Where spurting and suppressed it lay, 
For not a froth-flake touched the rim 
Of yonder gap in the solid grey 
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; 
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled 
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed. 
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the 
world. Pippa 

— Pippa Passes 

All regulated by the single care 

I' the last resort — that I made thoroughly serve 

The when and how, toiled where was need, reposed 

As resolutely at the proper point, 

Braved sorrow, courted joy, to just one end: 

Namely, that just the creature I was bound 

To be, I should become, nor thwart at all 

God's purpose in creation. I conceive 

No other duty possible to man, — 

Highest mind, lowest mind, — no other law 

By which to judge life failure or success: 

What folk called being saved or cast away! 

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (Napoleon III) 
— Prince Hohenstiel-Schwanzau 



122 BROWNING 

All tnat IS at all 
Lasts ever, past recall; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure ; 
What entered into thee. 
That was, is, and shall be: 

Time's wheel runs back or stops; Potter and clay. 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 
— Rabbi Ben Ezra 

He recognized that for great minds i' the world 
There is no trial like the appropriate one 
Of leaving little minds their liberty 
Of littleness to blunder on through life. 
Now aiming at right ends by foolish means, 
Now, at absurd achievement through the aid 
Of good and wise endeavor — to acquiesce 
In folly's life-long privilege, though with power 
To do the little minds the good they need. 
Despite themselves, by just abolishing 
Their right to play the part and fill the place 
I' the scheme of things He schemed who made a like 
Great minds and little minds, saw use for each. 
Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (Napoleon III) 

— Prince Hohenstiel-Schzvangau 

When is man strong until he feels alone? 

Valence 

— Colombe's Birthday 



SELECTIONS 123 

Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? 
Costs it more pain than this, ye call 
A "great event," should come to pass. 
Than that? Untv^ine one from the mass 
Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed 1 

Pippa 
— Pippa Passes 



Overhead the treetops meet, 
Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet; 
There was naught above me, naught below, 
My childhood had not learned to know : 
For, what are the voices of birds 
— Ah, and of beasts, — but words, our words, 
Only so much more sweet? 
The knowledge of that with my life begun. 
But I had so near made out the sun. 
And counted your stars, the seven and one. 
Like the fingers of my hand : 
Nay, I could all but understand 
Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges ; 
And just when out of her soft fifty changes 
No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 
Suddenly God took me. 

Pippa 
— Pippa Passes 



124 BROWNING 

Conceded! In turn concede to me. 
Such things have been as a mutual flame 

Your soul's locked fast: but love for a key 
You might let it loose, till I grew the same 

In your eyes as in mine you stand! Strange plea. 

James Lee's Wife 



To learn not only by the comet's rush 

But a rose's birth, — not by the grandeur, God — 

But the comfort, Christ. 

Caponsacchi 
— The Ring and the Book 



God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right 
All service ranks the same with God — 
With God, whose puppets, best and zvorst, 
Are we: there is no last or first. 

Pippa 
— Pippa Passes 



BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 



BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 

Recommended by the NeziP York Browning Society 

Browning's England (Illustrated) 
Browning's Italy (Illustrated) 

Helen Archibald Clarke. The Baker & Taylor Co. 
Best in Browning, The 

Rev. James Mudge, D.D. Eaton & Mains. 
Browning, Man and Poet 

Elizabeth Luther Cary. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
Browning Guide Book 

George Willis Cooke. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
Browning: Biographical Notes, Appreciations and 
Selections, 

Pauline Leavens. The Alice Harriman Co. 
Elizabeth Barrett Brcv/ning 

Martha Foote Crov/. Eaton & Mains. 
Florence in the Poetry of the Brownings 

Anna Benneson McMahon. McCIurg & Co. 
Introduction to Study of Browning 

Arthur Symons. E. P. Button & Co. 
Introduction to the Study of Browning 

Hiram Corson, LL.D. Heath & Co. 
Interpretation, An (The Ring and the Book) 

Francis Bickford Hornblower, D.D. Little, Brown 

& Co. 
Bible in Browning, The 

Minnie Gresham Machen. Macmillan Co. 
Browning and Dogma 

Ethel M. Naish. Macmillan Co. 
Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher 

Henry Jones, LL.D. Macmillan Co. 
127 



128 BROWNING 

Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

Edited by Frederic G. Kenyon. Macmillan Co. 
Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, 

Harper and Brothers. 
Life of Browning 

Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Macmillan Co. 
Poetry of Robert Browning, The 

Stopford A. Brooke, M.A. Crowell & Co. 
Pippa Passes (Illustrated) 

Margaret Armstrong. Dodd, Mead Co. 
Poems of Robert Browning 

(Everyman's Library). E. P. Button & Co. 
Poems of Robert Browning 

Edited by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. 

Crowell & Co. 
Primer of Browning 

Edward Bedoe. E. P. Button & Co. 
Robert Browning. Essays and Thoughts 

John T. Nettleship. Charles Scribner's Sons. 
Robert Browning 

Edward Bowden. Button & Co. 
Robert Browning 

Charles H. Herford. Bodd, Mead Co. 
Robert Browning Personalia 

Edmond Gosse. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
Robert Browning's Complete Works (Illustrated) 

Editions de luxe (Asolo), (Assisi), (Florentine). 

Introduction by Wm. Lyon Phelps. Fred Be Fau 

& Co. 
Vitality of Browning, The 

Thomas Marc Parrott. James Pott & Co. 



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